I'm sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket to my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand.
And ev'ry stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Ev'ry day's an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
And ev'ry stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be,
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Silently for me.

General CommentActually Simon said it was inspired by Widnes saying something along the lines of 'anyone who knows Widnes will know why I was longing to get back to London'. Could have been written anywhere.

General CommentActually Simon said it was inspired by Widnes saying something along the lines of 'anyone who knows Widnes will know why I was longing to get back to London'. Could have been written anywhere.

General CommentMany years ago, (20?), on his last show before Christmas, Letterman played this song to scenes of actual people arriving, presumably home, to loved ones in bus/train stations and/or airport. It was poignant, one of the most moving "videos" I've ever seen. Does anyone else remember it?

General CommentThis is one of the first songs I remember and there was someone on a bus singing it; a slow bus windings its way around narrow country roads through green fields. We were travelling to see our Gran with whom we were living at the time and it was going home. The idea of home and displacement had come to us early, losing a mother young. The idea of separation and yearning for something lost wasn't hard to relate to and I like the gentle, slightly rueful quality in Paul Simon's voice which rose into a sort of defiance in the chorus. Gone through many musical genres since then but always had affection for this song.